{"id":191709,"date":"2026-03-14T18:15:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T18:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/191709\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T18:15:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T18:15:13","slug":"manhunt-for-suspect-in-fatal-shooting-leads-to-delay-in-opening-gates-at-players-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/191709\/","title":{"rendered":"Manhunt for suspect in fatal shooting leads to delay in opening gates at Players Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 A man shot and killed two people in a drug store parking lot near the TPC Sawgrass and then escaped by going onto TPC Sawgrass, leading The Players Championship<\/a> to delay opening gates as a precaution before the third round Saturday morning, authorities said.<\/p>\n

St. Johns County Sheriff Rob Hardwick said the suspect, whom he identified as Christian Barrios, shot two people multiple times at about 10:30 p.m. Friday in the parking lot of Walgreens in what he called a domestic violence situation. The store is located about a mile from the course.<\/p>\n

Authorities say he was captured at about 8 a.m. Saturday in Nassau County, the far northeastern county in Florida located an hour north of the TPC Sawgrass.<\/p>\n

The PGA cited \u201coperational considerations\u201d in deciding not to open the gates until 9 a.m. The first round began on schedule at 8:15 a.m. Hospitality areas were delayed opening until 11 a.m.<\/p>\n

Hardwick said canine units pursued Barrios onto the TPC Sawgrass after the shooting. He said Barrios, who turned 32 on Saturday, at one point picked up a PGA Tour radio and later dropped it. He then stole a black BMW, and Nassau County authorities pursued the car and forced a crash into the woods.<\/p>\n

The suspect fled on foot before being found and taken into custody. It was not immediately clear if he had a lawyer who could speak on his behalf.<\/p>\n

Hardwick said the suspect had a long criminal history and knew the victims, both of whom were shot multiple times and taken to a hospital, where they died.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP golf: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/golf<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 A man shot and killed two people in a drug store parking lot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[89389,116,118,117,89390,110,1110],"class_list":["post-191709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-christian-barrios","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-rob-hardwick","tag-sports","tag-u-s-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}